The Beehive Pub — Restaurant in Sunderland

We booked to come for a joint birthday meal. The lady serving looked put out at more customers arriving. Two of us had the pork belly starters. They were over cooked and the sauce had dried into a solid sticky syrup which you had to scrape off your plate like glue. My mum had the king prawn and rump steak skewers for main. They were also over cooked and were dry and chewy. My daughter and I had the sea bass and I had a lovely amount of the lobster sauce and she had barely none. So we asked the lady if we could have some more. No was the answer. Its made up especially from scratch for the dish. My daughter commented that I had lots and she had none the lady said she would go and ask the chef. You'd think we had asked her to sever her leg off. The chef was acommodating and made us some more. We wanted desserts and coffee so asked for the desert menu and were told by the lady she needed the table as she had a party of 15 due. That we only have a 2 hour slot until 4pm. It was 3.40pm. She said you can look in the bar but I don't know if any tables are free in there. You only get 2 hours. I said we didn't realise this? No one said? She said you can see online you only get 2 hours. I said we hadn't seen this online? And we still had another 20 minutes if that was the case! She said you can see by the booking slots they are 2 hours apart? So we had to leave. We were really dissatisfied with some of the food, other parts of the meal were amazing. But her attitude was appaling. We definitely won't be coming back. We headed off to the Mill at Houghton and all had delicious deserts, were greeted by lovely staff and also stayed for coffee. Try the Mill. They seem to...

I've seen posts of the food for this place on Facebook so many times and the food looked amazing so we thought we'd call in on the off chance and give it a go. We went mid week at about 5:15 and we were lucky to get seated. Every table was reserved, that's always a good sign. We managed to get a seat in the bar area, took about 44mins from sitting down to getting our food, but considering there were about 4 tables of 4 or more people walked in and sat down during that time that was still pretty good.

Menu covers all sorts, from hot beef dips to bao buns. Watching the massive portions come out from the pass was insane, the portions were huge.

We ordered a geordie delight buger and the tikka parmo (from the specials of the day) food was fresh and piping hot. Unfortunately the parmo I ordered isn't the parma I got, what came was a classic parmo not the special I had requested. I didnt kick up a fuss due to how busy they were I just got stuck in. It was delicious, proper chunky chips which there was loads of, always a bonus.

As we were finishing I told the waiting staff of the error, they were very apologetic, I asked if they could amend the bill as there was about £6 difference in the price of the dishes, to my surprise though they just took the price of my dish off the bill. They said I shouldn't have to pay for something I didn't ask for. Which I thought was a nice touch! They didn't have to do that as I ate the majority of the meal, only didn't finish cos i was so full.

Definitely recommend the place, I would suggest that if you do go, you reserve a...

I have visited the Beehive Inn in Houghton Le Spring on several occasions with friends to have the afternoon tea, although I haven't tried the meals from the main menu I have seen them being taken to other tables and they look gorgeous. We have tried the traditional afternoon tea but they also do a fish and chips version of afternoon tea and I must say this is well worth it, soup for starters (which is made by the chef, last time was red pepper soup and it was so tasty) Then comes the main course of your afternoon tea which includes chips and battered fish pieces aswell as the usual offerings from afternoon tea, then they come out with a variety of desserts such as trifle in a glass and chocolate fudge cake. Pots of tea and coffee are included in the price which was very reasonable. We also bought soft drinks from the bar as extra, so if you wanted a treat then an alcoholic drink could always be added!... All of the food was beautiful and set out lovely, the best afternoon tea I have been to by far, and we have tried a few! The staff are extremely friendly, down to earth and very helpful... If you can't finish it then they will box up what you have left to take home and enjoy later... They also have special events like Valentines night etc.... On our last visit they were busy renovating upstairs for the afternoon teas and expanding in that area.... It is situated on the cross roads between Fencehouses/Sedgeletch, Shiney Row and Newbottle, there is a private carpark for customers too... Highly...